This is the third in a series of examples to illustrate the way that functionality that had been implemented on an older platform appears on a newer platform.
See this post for a general introduction with example and explanation of this peculiar pattern of software evolution. This earlier post contains an example in security services software and this earlier post describes an example in remote access software.
This example is known to me personally because my VC firm was an investor, and I was involved with them through the life of the investment.
Example: Knowledge Networks
Old platform |
Telephone, mail, focus groups |
Old function |
Conducting surveys for market and opinion research |
New platform |
Internet |
New function |
Essentially the same, with much greater knowledge of the activities of panel members before and after taking a survey, and the ability to conduct interactive surveys |
Outcome |
The premise was valid, but the company was ahead of the market. It was acquired in 2011. |
Organizations that depend a great deal on the opinions and actions of a large number of people sometimes conduct market research to help them shape the details of a product, an advertising campaign, a political campaign or other relevant effort. This kind of research long pre-dates computers. It normally starts using informal methods for selecting the people to ask and evaluating the results. But then it moves in stages towards increasing amounts of scientific control and analysis in order to reduce costs and improve accuracy.
Market research was already well-established on the prior technology “platform” of the telephone when the internet started to spread quickly in the second half of the 1990’s, when a substantial and growing fraction of the US population got internet access. People in the field were familiar with the issues of selection bias, people without telephones and random digit dialing methods of assuring statistically valid panels. But when the web (the new platform) started spreading quickly, did market research transfer its knowledge, methods and techniques to the new platform? It didn’t (I think you probably guessed the answer), because brand-new people put together the first web-based market research systems. It was quick, easy and had the advantage of being inexpensive – but it was as scientifically primitive as telephone-based surveys were prior to the introduction of statistical methods.
Knowledge Networks was started by a couple of professors with stature in market research in the pre-internet world, with the goal of keeping the cost and speed advantages of the internet, but bringing it up to pre-internet scientific standards.
While there has definitely been a migration of internet-based market research to higher levels of scientific standards, which Knowledge Networks has both led and benefited from, their experience is an example of the danger of getting too far ahead of the pattern. One of the key facts about the “emergence of functionality on a new platform” pattern is that the functionality emerges in the same order as it did on the earlier platforms – but it doesn’t skip steps or leap right to the end! These professors knew that internet-based market research would evolve to greater scientific integrity – and they were right! – but they didn’t fully appreciate that the market would get there in its own sweet time, and that it would insist on dawdling on intermediate steps. By insisting that Knowledge Networks provide only the best, highest-integrity market research methods, up to the standards of the best available on earlier technology platforms, the original leaders of the company caused it to be “out of step” with the market. They were “ahead” of the market, which is a great place to be if you want to be a business “visionary,” but is rarely a good place to be if your goal is to build a substantial business.
I have to say that this is a really hard one to get right in practical situations. I personally was involved with Knowledge Networks at the time some crucial decisions were made, but I didn’t know enough about or appreciate the power of the pattern to help make the company as successful as it could have been. In fact, I was probably part of the problem. The professors who started the company were really smart, and they were on top of all the issues of market research. I knew this, appreciated it, and was excited by the possibilities of benefiting by translating the best practices from traditional market research to the internet. What’s painful is that I also knew in general terms the dangers of being ahead of a market. But that’s exactly what we were, and yet again, for the umpteenth time, I didn’t see it and didn’t call it. Arghhh!
Lesson: being too early is just as bad as being too late.
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